What is the best month?

I'm starting to dream beyond the West Coast.  Once we are free of the house, we will be free to go anywhere in the US or Canada without having to double the fuel cost by including the miles back to the Santa Cruz Mountains.  That will be really nice. 

So I'm asking for your opinions of what is the best month to be in various states and national parks. I have some idea, but it would be interesting to hear from you.

What is the best month to be in:
Yellowstone
Glacier
South and North Dakota
Minnesota (we hope to visit you Judy!)
The Northeast states - Maine etc.
The Adirondacks
Georgia, South Carolina, Northern Florida
Tennessee
Louisiana
The Florida keys

and of course Alaska

What was your favorite state?

I'm starting to get excited about our future.

How do you clean the carpet in your RV?

We have had the Alfa for a little more than two years. When we bought her the carpets were pretty clean. Ugly, but clean. On two of our service stops at Alfateers, the carpets were done as part of their regular customer service. When we were there last time, the machine was not working.

So, by now the carpets were really in need of attention. At the house, we have either had a rug cleaning company come in, or rented one of the machines and shampooed the house carpets ourselves. I thought about that, but the Rug Doctor machines are so big I didn't think one would fit easily in the RV. I guess they have hand tools and upholstery attachments, but getting the basic machine in seemed difficult.

Since my daughter has two boys and a golden retriever, and light carpets, she also has a nice Hoover rug cleaning machine with a long hose hand-tool attachment. We used it Tuesday on the Alfa's rugs. I thought it would be a quick and easy task.  NOT! Craig did all the hard work because I have a "touchy" back. Bending and crawling around on the floor is just not something I can do without hurting for days after. So, I don't do that part, but I did help with the vacuuming and moving the machine from place to place.

Craig did a pretty good job and because we are sleeping at her house while they are gone, there is plenty of time to let it dry. Today while the boys are in school we will go over to the RV park and put things back in order. The Alfa looks like it has been picked up and turned over right now.

My question for other RV owners is "how do you clean your carpets?" Will the truck based carpet cleaners come to an RV park and do it for a reasonable amount? I know you can have a car detailed. Is there such a thing as an RV wash that will also do the rugs?

We (or should I say Craig) can do it, but I would like to hear about our options.

Of course, we are penny pinchers, so,  whatever the options are, we will probably keep doing it ourselves. We take our shoes off about 80% of the time, but during set up and tear down it just isn't practical. It also seems that any little smudge attracts black dust. We have had the exhaust system checked and we don't have any leaks, but diesel dust still seems to seep in and settle on everything.
When I run a cloth along the edges of hard surfaces like the window frames, my cloth picks it up.

Does anyone else notice this?

Family Times

I have been very distracted for the last few days and couldn't put together an interesting post.  We had a very nice Thanksgiving with our daughter, her husband and our two grandsons.

On Saturday our daughter and her husband left for a short trip to Switzerland, and we are staying at their home to look after the boys. They don't need taking care of, but do need to have adults in residence. We went to see a movie Saturday (Ender's Game) and on Sunday played a long game of Mexican Train before going to the home of family friends for dinner.

Today while the boys are in school we are going to oil the woodwork in the Alfa and shampoo the carpet. Exciting? Not! But it really needs it and this is a good time because we are not sleeping there for a few days.

I love being with family, but I don't think it makes for interesting post material. So if my blog is quiet for awhile, know I am relaxing and having fun with those I love more than anything.

I have a "Grand" smile today!

Los Algodones, Mexico

The next leg of our journey was to Indio, California.  The drive was just the way we like it, smooth and uneventful! Our alternative would have been to come south through Arizona, but MapQuest told us it was about fifty miles longer, and it seemed that Arizona was having some bad weather.

Besides, Craig wanted to get a Shields date shake.  No objections on my part.

Sunday saw us tootling along for the last 170 miles to Winterhaven CA. We stayed at the River's Edge RV resort. Not fancy, some train and highway noise, but it is one exit away from the Los Algodones border crossing. This is where there are dozens of dentists, pharmacies, doctors, opticians  and many other medical services pandering to the elder "Snow Bird" community.  

Had Craig not done some research and made an appointment for his laser periodontic (LANAP) procedure, it would have been quite daunting to run the sidewalk gauntlet of service hawkers. 
"Looking for a  dentist?"   "Come right in."  "Compare our prices." 

"Eye glasses?"  "Prescriptions?" "Come in!" "Lowest prices here!" 

"Gold chains? Rugs or blankets? Purses or leather belts?"  "Come right in, compare our prices!"

I insisted we go over early so we could find the dentist and take a look.

That took no time at all, so we walked around for a bit and had an early lunch.










As far as I know, things went fairly smoothly.  Craig is a bit uncomfortable tonight, but he would be if he had gone to a California periodontist too.  He will take antibiotics for a week, and we may drive back for a checkup appointment in two weeks.  It is about three hours from San Diego. We would come over in the car not the Alfa.

As we were waiting in line for re-entry, I had a conversation with a nice Canadian couple.  We discussed getting glasses in Los Algodones. The wife said you could see an optometrist in the morning and pick up your glasses in the afternoon. I am thinking about doing that when we come back for Craig's checkup.  It has been a long time since I have had my eyes checked, and I think I need new glasses. If they are good, it would save a couple hundred dollars, and if they were not good it wouldn't be a big loss.

I think of this as being one of the advantages of being a full-timer. 

We will see.  Have you had experience with Mexican medical/ dental/vision/pharmacies?

Camping World, Bakersfield, CA

The first day of our winter trip went very smoothly.  We woke to very gusty winds, but no rain and were a bit concerned about driving.  It turned out that San Jose had a "killer windstorm" Friday night, but we got out of town before it hit.

Getting out of our drive and up our road is always a difficult process, but it seems to go more smoothly each time.  I have made a flag with "RV COMING" and long pink ribbons that I use to stop the rare car coming down the road when we want to go up.  I go ahead to the top of the road in the car and let Craig know when it is clear for him to come up. I use the walkie-talkie, and do the same thing at the one short "S" curve just before the freeway entrance.  All in all we live about a mile from the freeway, but it is tight, curvy with a steep grade.  All went well, but we are not overconfident about it.

We stopped in town to dump and to top off the propane tank and then headed out.  We were both smiling.  We were not bothered by any wind and made it to our first destination, Camping World in Bakersfield, CA.

I had read that they allow overnight parking, and was delighted to find out that they also have two free 50amp hook ups.  We did some necessary shopping at the store and settled in for a nice night.

Sunset in Bakersfield

Saturday's drive should get us to Indio.  

Cabin Fever

I am happy to say that today, Thursday, is our last day at "Camp Driveway" for a month or more. We will head out for San Diego, by way of Los Algodones, Mexico for a dental appointment. 

Not for me. I decided to pay my American dentist big bucks because I had a complicating root splinter that had to be removed by an Oral Surgeon. I have no reservations about going there for simple work, but mine required several weeks of healing before the new bridge could be fit. In the future, if we are spending several months in Arizona, I might consider work that would take several visits over a period of time, but that wouldn't work for us right now.  Craig's work is a one-visit procedure.  We figure two and a half days of hard driving will get us there on Sunday. Appointment on Monday, and then over to San Diego on Tuesday.

For most RVers it is called "hitch-itch" The desire to get moving to the next place.  I have to call it "cabin fever" because the Alfa feels so much like a permanent structure on our land.  We have had more small fights about irrelevant things lately than I would like. We are not perfect!

I get negative about the house selling and exaggerate gloomy thoughts. Craig hates it when I'm an Eeyore.

And, I get mad at him when he acts like another kind of equine, and I don't mean a horse! 

I usually start a kerfuffle by questioning his way of doing something. I can't seem to keep my big mouth shut! He has done so much around the house and Alfa, and I still nag and question him. 

I'm sure things will get better as soon as we are on the road.  We both do want to do this, and we both are being worn down by the stress of having the house on the market. 

Most of the time when we are traveling we work together very well as a team.
Sometimes around the house too!

Enough about that. 

It has been quite cold and rainy for the last two nights. 

We noticed one interesting (to us) thing. In light or moderate rain you can only hear it in the back of the coach. It has to be coming down quit hard to hear rain in the front.  We wonder if that is due to less insulation in the ceiling, although Craig says he could see lots of insulation when he replaced the vent above the bed.

[From Craig] Folks on the Alfa Yahoo Group convinced me that the roof is well-insulated everywhere, so that we can only hear large drops.  There's a big pine tree behind our coach that "aggregates" (my word of the day :-) little raindrops into big ones, so that we only hear most rain in the bedroom. 

The rain stopped this morning, so Craig got the tires, oil and batteries all checked for travel. I'm getting the wash done. 

The sanitary dump place opens at ten, and after we are finished there we will be heading SOUTH! 628 miles in two and  half days.

PDS? No, he would do it in much less time. 

On to a new subject: I want to share a needlepoint project that I did this month.  It is a 3-ring binder for my reservations and stuff that I keep next to the co-pilot seat.  It is a little taller than a regular binder so it is easier to get in and out of its slot. The narrow pocket on the top of the inside is for a pen.

I'm working on more panels like these, but I'm not sure what I will do with them.  I find the basic images on the web and draw them onto the canvas with a sharpie. 

[From Craig]  How did I manage to get all the way to retirement age without ever having owned or used a creeper? 

Actually, I was a bit proud of this achievement, but it is no more.  Our leveling jacks needed maintenance, and it went a lot easier with a creeper. I cleaned the inside column of the jacks with brake cleaner, then greased them.  I should probably go under again and wipe most of the grease off, so that it doesn't accumulate lots of dirt.

Happy Birthday to Me

I've never really put a lot of importance on Birthdays.  Especially my own. But today was my 67th. and Craig brought me the appropriate items for celebration.

Roses:

A cake:

And a bottle of BlackBerry Brandy:

We went to see Ender's game on Friday.  Wonderful movie!

I think I'm a bit buzzed from he Blackberry Brandy, so it's just Good night All.